VG247 » Alice: Madness Returnshttp://www.vg247.com
VG247.comWed, 04 Mar 2015 00:09:35 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.1Alice film rights added to OZombie Kickstarterhttp://www.vg247.com/2013/07/04/alice-film-rights-added-to-ozombie-kickstarter-as-stretch-goal/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/04/alice-film-rights-added-to-ozombie-kickstarter-as-stretch-goal/#commentsThu, 04 Jul 2013 02:10:39 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=385330OZombie developer Spicy Horse would like to secure the film rights to American McGee’s vision of Alice in order to produce a series of short animations or even a feature film based on Otherlands, the studio’s other major potential project. To further this aim, Spicy Horse has announced it will use some of its OZombie Kickstarter funds to seal a deal, because “doing so will increase awareness about OZombie and put us in a position to secure and develop the Alice property as animated shorts and eventually feature film”. In other words: Alice fans pay (or rather, help pay) for OZombie, OZombie earns enough to pay for Alice.
]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/04/alice-film-rights-added-to-ozombie-kickstarter-as-stretch-goal/feed/0American McGee apologises for EA “trick” statementhttp://www.vg247.com/2013/01/23/american-mcgee-apologises-for-ea-trick-statement/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/23/american-mcgee-apologises-for-ea-trick-statement/#commentsWed, 23 Jan 2013 12:30:21 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=332288American McGeee has posted an apology on his blog, after stating on Reddit that EA had ‘tricked’ the public into thinking the Spicy Horse game Alice: Madness Returns was a hardcore horror game. McGee has now retracted the statement and apologised to EA.

Over on McGee’s blog, the developer has addressed the media shitstorm that followed his statement.

“To my surprise,” he wrote, “this ignited a firestorm of press coverage from the game media. It attracted a few pissed messages from EA. Some readers have even suggested this has killed any possibility of my ever being employed by a game publisher again.

“Allow me to expand on my original post while at the same time making a correction (call it a retraction if you like). “Tricked” is the wrong word. I take that back. Apologies to EA and anyone else whose feelings were hurt. Electronic Arts doesn’t trick customers into buying things.

“They carefully apply proven marketing techniques to achieve the desired customer response. If they were bad at this sort of thing they’d have been crushed by their competitors long ago and you’d be playing Madden Football from Activision or Atari or something.”

McGee then goes on to explain that the relationship between marketers and developers often leads to disagreements and that we now live in a world where the big marketing buck and flashy promises are commonplace.

“Beyond that,” he continues, “there has always been and likely always will be tension between publishers and developers over stuff like this. Truth is, publishers are giving audiences what they want – again, if they weren’t they wouldn’t stay in business very long.

“Maybe I don’t agree with where gaming content seems to be going – but isn’t that the prerogative of aging creators? To complain that things are too loud, too bright or too fleshy?”

“At the end of the day, I’ve got (well, had) a good relationship with EA. They helped put my name on the map. They funded two of my favorite creations. And they helped me bring strikingly original content to a gaming world that often seems dominated by bullets and boobs.

“I can’t and don’t fully fault them or their marketing for whatever the “Alice” games might or might not have done sales-wise. As a developer, do I grumble into my beer about how it could have been different if only… ? Sure do! But I also recognize my own faults, and actions which are to blame for things not being 100%… or for inadvertently igniting firestorms.”

What’s your take on the issue? Was Alice: Madness Returns marketed untruthfully by EA, or is this now the state of the world we live in? Let us know below.

The well-known games designer pulled no punches in a recent forum discussion.

“What was frustrating was how EA Marketing interfered – telling STS from the start that ALL creative direction and final say would come from them, not from us (the developer/creator of the story/tone),” wrote McGee during a Reddit AMA session.

“That resulted in trailers that were much darker and gorier than the game … and that was a calculated disconnect created by EA”, he continued.

“They wanted to ‘trick’ gamers into believing A:MR was a hard-core horror title, even though we refused to develop it in that tone. Their thinking is, even if the game isn’t a hard-core horror title, you can market it as one and trick those customers into buying it (while driving away more casual customers, like female gamers, who might be turned off by really dark trailers). It’s all part of the race.”

EA released McGee’s Alice sequel in June 2011. It received decent critical success, achieving a Metacritic score of 70 on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, alongside an average PC score of 75.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/21/american-mcgee-ea-tried-to-trick-gamers-into-believing-alice-madness-returns-was-a-horror-title/feed/15McGee’s F2P games making more profit than Alice: Madness Returns “ever did”http://www.vg247.com/2012/07/17/mcgees-f2p-games-making-more-profit-than-alice-madness-returns-ever-did/
http://www.vg247.com/2012/07/17/mcgees-f2p-games-making-more-profit-than-alice-madness-returns-ever-did/#commentsTue, 17 Jul 2012 08:24:09 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=277530Alice developer American McGee has dismissed a future for consoles in their current form, saying the idea was doomed from the start.

Spicy Horse boss American McGee has said the traditional console model will not survice, and that his free-to-play, web-based games are generating more money for the company that the EA-published Alice: Madness Returns “ever did”.

“Earning out on a console title is like digging out from under an avalanche,” he told Game Informer.

“If you don’t get out from under the advances within a very short period of time it’s all over. F2P offers an opportunity to release something into the wild and improve it continually until it returns a profit. Making good on the opportunity is in no way guaranteed, but the option is there. This all being the case, we’ve already seen our online F2P games generate more profit and a better ROI than [Alice: Madness Returns] ever did, or likely will.”

McGee was assured in his assessment of the current console model: it won’t work going forward.

“Though the console market extracted two decades of profit and mindshare from Western developers and consumers, it was unsustainable from inception,” he said.

“Looked at from the perspective of external markets where consoles aren’t the foundation of the gaming ecosystem, the idea of physical media (discs) and fixed location gaming (consoles) now seems anachronistic.

“But it’s worth examining where the money flowed in a market where consoles dominated and how they helped consolidate power among a handful of publishers. The transition we’re now seeing is a revolution of the model that will lead to greater freedom for future publishers, developers and consumers.”

Spicy Horsew publishes several web-based F2P games, such as BigHeadBash. The Shanghai-based studio employs 50 people, and has three original games in development.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2012/07/17/mcgees-f2p-games-making-more-profit-than-alice-madness-returns-ever-did/feed/13Amazon putting select EA titles on sale next weekhttp://www.vg247.com/2012/01/12/amazon-putting-select-ea-titles-on-sale-next-week/
http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/12/amazon-putting-select-ea-titles-on-sale-next-week/#commentsThu, 12 Jan 2012 20:27:56 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=226284Amazon holding a sale on EA titles, which runs from January 15 – January 21, and you can get some great game for cheap such as Dead Space 2 and Bulletstorm for $7.

Each day, will bring a different sale, and Joystiq was kind enough to pretty up the list for you. We’ve posted it below.

If you purchases all games on the list, it would run you about the same as one new release.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/12/amazon-putting-select-ea-titles-on-sale-next-week/feed/4Quick Shots: Weapons of Madness and Dresses Pack DLC for Alice: Madness Returnshttp://www.vg247.com/2011/06/16/quick-shots-weapons-of-madness-and-dresses-pack-dlc-for-alice-madness-returns/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/16/quick-shots-weapons-of-madness-and-dresses-pack-dlc-for-alice-madness-returns/#commentsThu, 16 Jun 2011 20:17:53 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=180477EA has released the costumes and weapons pack for Alice: Madness Returns, and we’ve posted the pretty pictures of it for you below.

The Weapons of Madness and Dresses Pack will run you $1.99 on PSN and 160 MSP on Xbox Live, and it includes:

Weapons

Pepper Grinder — Called the Octo-grinder, this weapon increases ammo limit and provides double the ammo.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/06/alice-madness-returns-trailer-highlights-mini-games/feed/0Alice: Madness Returns launch trailer brings ithttp://www.vg247.com/2011/06/03/alice-madness-returns-launch-trailer-brings-it/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/03/alice-madness-returns-launch-trailer-brings-it/#commentsFri, 03 Jun 2011 01:50:31 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=175731Any doubts as to whether Spicy Horse has tapped the eerie spirit of the original in Alice: Madness Returns may now be relinquished. This launch trailer is amazing.

The introduction and first level of Alice: Madness Returns might fool you into thinking the game is going somewhere it’s apparently not, because its destination, as seen in the trailer below, is Pure Fucking Mental, Ohio. By the express route.

Delicious.

Alice: Madness Returns, which includes a free copy of American McGee’s Alice, drops on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 17.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/03/alice-madness-returns-launch-trailer-brings-it/feed/2Quick Shots – Alice: Madness Returns screens are quite lovelyhttp://www.vg247.com/2011/06/02/quick-shots-alice-madness-returns-screens-are-quite-lovely/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/02/quick-shots-alice-madness-returns-screens-are-quite-lovely/#commentsThu, 02 Jun 2011 20:47:05 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=175641Some more shots of Alice: Madness Returns have popped up, and like the rest we’ve seen over the last few months, they are lovely. Not much really to say about them, really. See for yourself below. Game’s out on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 June 16.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/02/quick-shots-alice-madness-returns-screens-are-quite-lovely/feed/3E3′s shadow can’t darken summer’s blistering line-uphttp://www.vg247.com/2011/06/01/e3s-shadow-cant-darken-summers-blistering-lineup/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/01/e3s-shadow-cant-darken-summers-blistering-lineup/#commentsWed, 01 Jun 2011 07:37:37 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=174833E3 used to be all about publishers prepping for the annual gift-fest, but it’s now a primer for the rest of companies’ entire financial years – including summer.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge

Next week, there’ll be a lot of attention focussed on big holiday season releases, as well upcoming blockbusters as distant as 2013, but the E3 show floor will be crowded will current releases vying for a little limelight. Don’t stare too hard at the future – the next few months are going to be epic.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is due this very week; the dungeon crawler has really gone under the hype radar despite developer inXile’s pedigree. Bethesda may be counting on it being a slow burn, but if you’re looking for some co-op fun over the break, you’d do well to check it out.

Shortly thereafter, on June 7, Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition drops, and although it’s just an add-on, it could well rejuvenate the bestselling fighter’s multiplayer scene for a few weeks. What better time to come to grips with the new content than with a fresh influx of vacationing players?

Infamous 2

June 10 is a big day, with three major releases. InFamous 2 also pulls a multiplayer card, in a way – joining Sony’s Play.Create.Share brand with user-generated content tools. It will probably take a while for creators to start producing really ripping stuff, but there’ll never be more pumped out than during the release window.

Action fans will be well catered for in mid-June. Red Faction: Armageddon will be looking to continue Volition’s ascension, but it’ll be overshadowed by quite literally one of the most anticipated launches of all time – Duke Nukem Forever.

Alice: Madness Returns follows on June 14, resurrecting a decade of nostalgia. Speaking of nostalgia, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS drops on June 17, while those more keen on new experiences can pick up Child of Eden.

Shadows of the Damned

After a short break, the madness resumes on June 24 with F.E.A.R. 3 and Shadows of the Damned, both excellent excuses to throw a spooky-themed party.

Heading into July, there’s fewer reasons to stay inside, but Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 should satisfy your robotic hack-and-slash desires on the first of the month. Plus, UFC Personal Trainer offers the opportunity to point out how well you can exercise indoors, mum.

Assuming you actually do want to go outdoors, take your 3DS and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D with you.

This is where things start to get quiet again, but Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine will hit in August, and we’re expecting Catherine before the weather gets much cooler.

Bloodrayne: Betrayal and Deathspank: The Baconing fill the downloadable quota, alongside a pair of Fallout: New Vegas DLC packs expected to drop sometime during the summer, and a couple of movie tie-ins – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon should keep you busy.

Catherine

Now that we’ve finally kicked the traditional release drought of mid-year, there’s a sterling line up over the next three months which should keep you happy until the deluge begins building in September. No excuses, kid: close the blinds and snuggle closer to the cool glow of the screen. It’s going to be a log, hot summer.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/01/e3s-shadow-cant-darken-summers-blistering-lineup/feed/7Video – Alice does a bit of platforming in Madness Returnshttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/31/video-alice-does-a-bit-of-platforming-in-madness-returns/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/31/video-alice-does-a-bit-of-platforming-in-madness-returns/#commentsTue, 31 May 2011 16:23:57 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=174634The latest video for Alice:Madness Returns has been released, and it shows off a bit of platforming as our heroine battles her inner demons. Poor Alice. She really has some issues, doesn’t she? Thankfully for us, these issues will be playable when the game launches on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 June 16. Thanks, Rely on Horror.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/31/video-alice-does-a-bit-of-platforming-in-madness-returns/feed/7Latest Alice trailer shows of her combat moveshttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/27/latest-alice-trailer-shows-of-her-combat-moves/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/27/latest-alice-trailer-shows-of-her-combat-moves/#commentsFri, 27 May 2011 13:37:49 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=173872EA and Spicy Horse released a combat trailer for Alice: Madness Returns overnight, and it shows our heroine battling knights. The developer has also seen fit to release some new bits of concept art, some of which you can purchase.

According to Kotaku, you will soon be able to purchase lithographs through the EA Store.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/27/latest-alice-trailer-shows-of-her-combat-moves/feed/2Hysteria Mode screened for Alice: Madness Returnshttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/26/hysteria-mode-screened-for-alice-madness-returns/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/26/hysteria-mode-screened-for-alice-madness-returns/#commentsThu, 26 May 2011 17:15:30 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=173650EA and Spicy Horse have released a few screenshots of the Hysteria Mode in Alice: Madness Returns.

In the game, when Alice becomes badly wounded in combat the screen along with our heroine changes as she makes one last attempt to kill her enemy.

Hysteria Mode basically gives her a power boost to try and destroy the enemy once and for all before succumbing to her wounds.

Alice: Madness Returns ships on June 16 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/26/hysteria-mode-screened-for-alice-madness-returns/feed/2Alice: Madness Returns – McGee on retracing Goth rootshttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/23/alice-madness-returns-mcgee-on-retracing-goth-roots/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/23/alice-madness-returns-mcgee-on-retracing-goth-roots/#commentsMon, 23 May 2011 06:04:36 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=172479It’s been a decade since American McGee’s Alice brought Goth culture to gaming, but “dark” has since become standard. Can Madness Returns compete with today’s preoccupation with grit?

In 2000, the Gothic culture building since the 1980s was arguably at its peak: just mainstream enough to be affordable but still cliquey enough to feel special, shedding its punk associations. In 2011, the dark underground has all but been subsumed into alt-rock, punk, emo – perhaps even scene-kid and hipster. Skulls, crossbones and OTT hairstyles are everywhere, but the feeling’s not the same, American McGee agreed with VG247 on Friday.

“I think from the moment that we made the first game, there was a whole scene that was much more vibrant – you know, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails,” the famed designer noted.

“I’ve actually read a bit on the transformation of that culture after nine-eleven, because at some point people were like, ‘Well, I’m just not fucking dark enough.’ You sort of had to give it up.

“But I think we’ve seen the sort of Victorian Gothic elements still remain – that’s a much more art and fashion-focussed version of the idea, right? I think as it applies to our game. There’s still an audience out there; there’s still aspects of the product they can appreciate.”

“I don’t think we’re making the product for any hip scene that’s going on,” he says.

“We’re going back to the roots of Victorian culture, where all that fetish and cool stuff comes from. We took inspiration from Gothic architecture, from fashion at the time, from surrealist artists, so I like to think that what we’re gonna offer sort of has an eternal appeal.”

In fact, this time around, the dark heart of the game beats harder – and smarter.

“The art aspect the Gothic part of the game this time around is much better informed,” McGee says.

“I dunno if I’d say it was a one-note dark [in the first game], but it wasn’t as varied as what we’ve produced this time around with Ken and his team really putting their minds to a lot of different elements of the Gothic, and the Victorian culture from the era.”

Quick Q&A with American 1

Have you thought about releasing any of your research and source material, a lá L.A. Noire’s interactive crime map?
“There’s a really beautiful book of art that Dark Horse has put out, that contains all of the work that Ken and his guys did, and a lot of the thoughts they were having about those pieces while they were making them.”

Certainly there was no conscious decision to incorporate inspiration from current fashion in the design, for example.

“It’s all of the period. One of the things we adhered to while working on the game was this concept was that anything you saw in Wonderland had to be the natural product of Alice’s imagination, which meant that the character of Alice need to have been exposed to that idea, that image or that experience in her real life,” McGee stresses.

“So we went back and researched music and literature and opera, news of the day, to make sure that we had a sense of the things she would have been immersed in, so that when we produced the fantastic [or] surreal elements of Wonderland, they could have a natural source.”

Nevertheless, enough time has passed that some of the gamers playing Madness Returns won’t remember the days when frock coats and fob watches walked the streets independent of doom, gloom, and other things ending with “oom” and on sale in all major retailers. Wong says Spicy Horse weren’t concerned about Madness Returns possibly being given the same labels as shadowsoft.

“I don’t think we were really thinking about how people would see us compared to like, Twilight or anything. We were working hard at making the most fun, visually appealing, awesome Alice game that we could,” he says.

“For me it’s as simple as that. Personally I see this in a different category,” McGee chimes in. “There are all sorts of different shades, right? I wouldn’t put this in the same book as something like Twilight for instance.

“I think Alice, in the first game, created a branch in that story’s fiction, and the character’s narrative, and one that’s quite viable and just like the original books, will live on. And this is an extension of that.

“As we see it, every generation spends some time to retell the tales from the past, and this us retelling the retelling of one of these tales, and I think it’ll live on despite whatever else is going on around it.”

The next folklore to receive Spicy Horse’s attention is one it has already explored through its mobile division, Spicy Pony. Akaneiro, a retelling of Red Riding Hood set in Feudal Japan, was released as an iPad storybook.

“Got a kinda dark Japanese spiritual twist to it,” McGee says. “We’re currently looking at adapting that into a PC online and mobile online game.”

Red Riding Hood is a popular subject for dark re-interpretation, but McGee seems unfazed, commenting that he enjoyed Belgian indie developer Tale of Taler’s take on the story: The Path.

“Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, I really love the guys that are working on that,” he says.

“I’ve talked to them many times and I find their exploration of the medium to be really inspirational.”

Quick Q&A with American 2

Where do your sympathies lie in the debate on Lewis Carroll’s relationship with the real Alice Liddell?“That, I don’t know, and we’re not qualified to comment on.”

On the recent film – directed by Twilight lead Catherine Hardwicke and a similar product of the Mills-and-fangs school of dark fantasy – he is less enthusiastic.

“I don’t know that I would consider Twilight Gothic,” McGee protests.

“Have you seen the trailer for that Red Riding Hood film? I don’t know that I would consider that… There’s an episode of South Park that made me laugh because there was a whole Twilight thing taking over the school, and the Goth kids – the original Goth kids – were getting quite upset because they were being categorised as emo and Twilighters, so they had to go and destroy Hot Topic, the source of all evil.

“There’s categories within categories. I don’t think that what we’re working on will be hurt by that, and I also don’t think that the people who watch those movies will be turned off by our Alice and maybe some of our fans cross over and like the Twilight stuff.”

McGee was quick to reiterate that the market for shadowsoft had no effect on Madness Return’s development.

“Did we pander to or change our vision to try to adapt to whatever’s going with stuff like Twilight? No. Not in any way.”

Wonderland and the real world

Madness Return’s intro movie..

McGee is confident enough in the distinctiveness of his vision of Alice that he’d be keen to see a long-delayed film version come to light, describing the possibility of an adaptation as “fantastic”.

“We’d be really happy to see someone bring it into film or TV. In some ways the film project in some ways continues to live on, there are producers in Hollywood who are actively trying to see it made. Hollywood sometimes moves slowly. We’ll wait and see,” he says.

In fact, Spicy Horse incorporated a number of cinematic tricks in the development of Madness Returns. McGee lists his favourite derived character as the Red Queen, but praises the team’s work on the Carpenter.

“His performance in the game is fantastic – his lines are great, the acting of them, the movements in the game are great – and that’s all a function of the guy who animated him and did the motion capture for him.

“So that guy’s skills, his ability as an actor and an animator really show through.”

But is the wider world of media ready for McGee’s Alice, which features a less-than-subtle depiction of mental illness in a culture increasingly wary of loaded political questions on care and agency?

“You know, when we’re building these games, we’re using the concept of losing your mind as an edge. The terror, right?” McGee says.

“It’s difficult to be sensitive when in fact, this is the bludgeon that we’re using to create terror for Alice and for the audience.

“At the same time, there’s this concept of her having a strength about her that allows her to overcome that fear, that terror. If anything, there’s a message in there for peopler who are looking for one. Here’s a witty, intelligent and strong woman who’s able to fight past those demons.”

“We could go on making these games for the next 30 years”

Asked if there was anything left of the Carroll mythos to explore, both McGee and Wong seems to feel there was plenty of scope for more Alice games.

“We took a lot of stuff from the [Alice] books that couldn’t really make it into the game,” Wong says, giving the Lion and the Unicorn as an example that didn’t make the cut.

“We didn’t get the opportunity to really make it in the game, but we think that could have been something really amazing. That would be my favourite one.”

McGee seems to have his sights set higher.

“For me, the concept of Wonderland is this playground of the imagination. We could go on making these games for the next 30 years.

“The technology is always going to be playing catch-up with what you can imagine her being able to do. I think if we ever get the chance to make another one, it’ll just be, once again, trying to push the boundaries of the surreal or the strange actions that she can play out in the world.”

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/20/friday-shorts-ii-ico-novel-cthulhu-dinosaur-king-breath-of-death-twitter-quotes-sales/feed/2Alice: Madness Returns intro is properly mentalhttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/17/alice-madness-returns-intro-is-properly-mental/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/17/alice-madness-returns-intro-is-properly-mental/#commentsTue, 17 May 2011 13:00:11 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=171299EA’s released the two minute introduction video for Alice: Madness Returns. To say it’s “fucked up” is probably nothing less than an understatement. Find out why for yourself below the break, via CVG. The game’s out on June 17 for PS3, 360 and PC. At release, PS3 and 360 copies will get download codes to play the original PC version of Alice from 2000.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/17/alice-madness-returns-intro-is-properly-mental/feed/8Spicy Horse signs PopCap deal, Alice gets new videohttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/13/spicy-horse-signs-popcap-deal-alice-gets-new-video/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/13/spicy-horse-signs-popcap-deal-alice-gets-new-video/#commentsFri, 13 May 2011 18:55:03 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=170793American McGee’s firm, Spicy Horse Entertainment, has taken its first initial step into the social and and online gaming market by securing a $3 million investment from Singapore and Shanghai-based Vickers Venture Partners, and has revealed its next project to be a 3D version of a popular PopCap title.

“The sense is that while a lot of social games have built their empires on 2D, there will be a moment where the genre has to shift into 3D, and we want to start that process now,” McGee told Gamasutra, adding that he and the firm are “much more excited about” about its recently announced venture into the free-to-play and online market that packaged titles.

McGee added that the firm want to “prove that experience can translate to 3D, and maintain that casual audience — so we want to be there as that wave starts to come up.”

The funding will allow Spicy Horse to bring multiple titles to the market over the next two years. McGee could not disclose details on the title the firm is working with PopCap on, but did say that the micro transaction based multiplayer title would be released for the Asian market first.

Meanwhile, Alice: Madness Returns, the firm’s upcoming PC, Mac, PS3 and 360 title for EA, has a new 10-minute video which we’ve posted below.

The game releases on June 14 in the US and June 16 in Europe.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/13/spicy-horse-signs-popcap-deal-alice-gets-new-video/feed/6The Madness Returns in new Alice gameplay trailershttp://www.vg247.com/2011/05/11/the-madness-returns-in-new-alice-gameplay-trailers/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/11/the-madness-returns-in-new-alice-gameplay-trailers/#commentsWed, 11 May 2011 08:04:58 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=169896Alice is still not exactly what you’d call “right in the head”, which is becoming more and more apparent in these two new gameplay trailers from Alice: Madness Returns.

Alice: Madness returns is due out very soon indeed, we’re expecting to learn plenty more at this year’s E3.

Meanwhile, Evil Avatar had these two tucked away, and we are eternally grateful.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/11/the-madness-returns-in-new-alice-gameplay-trailers/feed/9American McGee to focus on free-to-play PC titles and mobile platformshttp://www.vg247.com/2011/04/21/american-mcgee-to-focus-on-free-to-play-pc-titles-and-mobile-platforms/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/21/american-mcgee-to-focus-on-free-to-play-pc-titles-and-mobile-platforms/#commentsThu, 21 Apr 2011 13:40:31 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=166058Spicy Horse studio head, American McGee has said that Alice: Madness Returns “may be the last retail box product that we do for some time.” However, he has an idea or two about Alice 3, should EA ever choose to make it.

Speaking to CVG, McGee said that after Alice: Madness Returns his studio intends to focus on free-to-play PC titles and handheld platforms.

“I think the handheld market in general, and especially the Android environment, is a real boon to the industry and to developers and consumers and I think it’s going to open up a lot more possibility for very creative, exploratory ideas around gaming and around social platforms and the mobile platforms all linked together,” he said.

“Alice may be the last retail box product that we do for some time but for the next couple of years we’re going to focus very exclusively on free-to-play PC downloadable games and then also push those other mobile platforms.”

But, should EA come knocking, McGee has a vision for a third instalment in the deranged action franchise.

“From a thematic standpoint it was always the intention that in the first game she ultimately overcame the psychological world – she overcame the world of her fantasy – and in the second game, one of the core themes is that she’s got to maintain or gain control of the physical space, the physical world of reality,” he said.

“Were we to push forward into another title after this, there’s an opportunity there to show a blending together of those two things. I can’t go into a lot of the thinking behind it but certainly there are some thoughts about what we would do if we did another product after this.”

Let’s just hope we wouldn’t have to wait quite so long for a third instalment – there were eleven years between the original American McGee’s Alice and its sequel which is due out on PC, Mac, PS3 and 360 on June 14 in the US and June 16 in Europe.

Details were recently unveiled of how buying Alice: Madness Returns on PS3 or 360 will net you code that can be used to download a free version of American McGee’s Alice via PSN or XBL.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/21/american-mcgee-to-focus-on-free-to-play-pc-titles-and-mobile-platforms/feed/1EA confirms PSN and XBL details on original Alice titlehttp://www.vg247.com/2011/04/20/ea-confirms-psn-and-xbl-details-on-original-alice-title/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/20/ea-confirms-psn-and-xbl-details-on-original-alice-title/#commentsWed, 20 Apr 2011 17:16:45 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=165791After American McGee announced earlier in the week that Alice: Madness Returns will include a copy of the original Alice game with it, today, EA officially confirmed the news.

According to the firm, new copies of Alice: Madness Returns on consoles include a one-time-use code for the original game via PSN and XBL.

Should you purchase the game used, or are not interested in Madness Returns, the original Alice will run you $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points.

Game’s out June 14, 2011.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/20/ea-confirms-psn-and-xbl-details-on-original-alice-title/feed/5Alice: Madness Returns to include original gamehttp://www.vg247.com/2011/04/18/alice-madness-returns-to-include-original-game/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/18/alice-madness-returns-to-include-original-game/#commentsMon, 18 Apr 2011 13:03:55 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=164916American McGee’s confirmed that this summer’s Alice: Madness Returns will ship with a code to download the original 2000 PC platformer – on all formats.

“There’s also going to be pretty significant release, the original Alice brought over to the consoles, so that a person who’s purchased Madness Returns gets a download code and is able to play through the entire original game alongside playing Madness Returns,” said the developer, speaking to CVG.

McGee added that other DLC will also be provided as new clothing for Alice.

“There will be DLC in the form of dresses that the player can download and Alice can wear,” he said. “Those dresses come with special abilities and enhance how you play through the game.”

The original Alice was a surprise hit on PC, selling more than 1.5 million copies.

It’s releasing for PC, 360 and PS3 on June 14. Check out Keza’s recent chat with American here.

Alice: Madness Returns

Developed by American McGee’s Chinese studio, Spicy Horse.

Sequel to 2000′s 1.5 million-seller on PC.

Releasing for PC, 360 and PS3 on June 14.

The eye-catching premise of American McGee’s vision of Alice, in case you missed it the first time around, is that Wonderland exists inside her head. Following her innocent childish adventures in Lewis Carrol’s stories, her imaginary realm has been twisted into a macabre nightmare by real-world trauma. Alice’s entire family perishes in a fire, and she is incarcerated in an asylum with her own nightmares.

In Alice: Madness Returns, she has been released into the care of a psychiatrist in real-world London. But her psychology is no less twisted, and her trips into Wonderland are no less psychedelically monstrous. The story revolves around Alice’s suspicion that somebody started that fire, but it’s an open-ended mystery, as American McGee explains.

“The first part of the mystery is obvious. It’s ‘who killed my parents?’” he says. “But the second half it’s less obvious – it’s more about ‘who am I?’

“There’s also some question about whether or not she was complicit about what happened when her family died. The main principle is knowing the character, and letting everything flow naturally form her.”

Like its predecessor, Alice: Madness Returns is a third-person puzzle platformer – a genre that was dominant 11 years ago when the first Alice was released, but has since bowed to the FPS and more conventional action-adventure. As such, Madness Returns feels more than a little old-fashioned – although, with it horrendous enemies, twisted environments and blood-soaked, ominous feel, it could hardly be described as comfortingly familiar.

“There’s some question about whether or not she was complicit about what happened when her family died.”

Giant flowers shrink Alice down to miniature, revealing ghostly outlines of platforms and chalk-scrawled arrows on the walls that weren’t visible before. She jumps and floats with a parasol – this isn’t a game that demands precision plaforming – and fights with the same Vorpal Blade dagger that she used to liberate Wonderland from her own insanity the first time around.

She also has a hobby horse mallet, a teapon cannon and a pepper-grinder machine gun, all three familiar weapons in unfamiliar clothing. The same can be said for much of what we see of Madness Returns: it’s a fairly conventional puzzle platformer, with all the collectibles and floating platforms and combat that it implies, but it’s all inverted, twisted into something quite monstrous. The collectibles are teeth, the platforms float through Escher-esque tangles of warped buildings, and the enemies are bloodstained cloth playing cards with screaming skulls for faces.

Structural familiarity

Given that the game is based upon the psyche of a mad person – a person, in other words, whose perception differs drastically from those around her – this structural familiarity juxtaposed against the twisted aesthetic might actually be quite a clever commentary on the nature of madness. There are moments of deviation from the template – there are side-on platforming levels, and various quirky sections where Alice must do things like take off her own head and roll it around a maze, Marble Madness style – but otherwise, McGee says, it’s not pushing the envelope gameplay-wise.

The first teaser video.

“The gameplay is important, but at the same time gameplay really has to be presented in a way where it’s sublime – where it moves outside of and away from the core of the product, which is the aesthetic, the narrative and the characters,” he says.

“What it comes down to is the presentation of the story and the character. The gameplay fits with that thematically, but it’s not trying to set itself out as a reinvention of the wheel. It’s not trying to innovate on that genre, because there’s already a core there that, presented the right way, is enjoyable.”

Instead the innovation comes from the presentation. This is an Unreal 3 game that does not look at all like an Unreal game – indeed, McGee mentions that the art team has spent a lot of time trying to distance it artistically from its engine.

Better than Burton?

Madness Returns doesn’t confine itself solely to the inside of Alice’s head. There are also sections set in real-world London as she pieces together what actually happened to her family. But the two settings often intertwine, taking inspiration from each other.

“We created a rule that nothing could exist in Wonderland that wouldn’t be based on something she had seen or experienced in London,” says McGee. “Wonderland is always inspired by Alice’s real world experiences, and in London we do a lot of foreshadowing of what’s coming next.”

Of all the re-imaginings of Lewis Carrol’s creation, American McGee’s Alice still stands out as one of the most creatively interesting. The darkening and twisting of fairy tales is something that horror films and literature have been doing for a long time (though some things, like the Grimm Fairytales, could hardly be darker and more horrifying if you tried), but for games this is still fairly new.

Off-screen gameplay shot at GDC.

But what’s it like developing a game set inside someone’s head? McGee claims that it’s a unique creative challenge – and the studio’s understanding of the character is central to overcoming it.

“From the beginning you have to have a very clear understanding of who Alice is as a character, of her psychology, you have to understand the damage that’s been done to her, and you have to understand what it is that she’s after – because oftentimes even she’s not clear about that,” he says.

“She has to identify herself as the tool that overcomes her problems. Madness is not recognising the fact that you have control. The first game was about her having control over her internal psychology. This game is about grasping control of the real world. Part of our job is to get out of the way of it, get out of the way of her character.”

As always, it’s difficult to tell whether there’s more to Alice: Madness Returns than it first seems, or whether its aesthetically fascinating but mechanically unexceptional vision of Wonderland lays everything out on the table from the very beginning. Even if that’s the case, though, simple gameplay won’t necessarily hold Alice back. Sometimes you have to look beyond the basic mechanics of a game to see what’s interesting about it, and those games are often the most memorable.

Alice: Madness Returns releases for PC, 360 and PS3 on June 14.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/11/american-mcgee-%e2%80%9cwere-not-trying-to-reinvent-the-wheel%e2%80%9d/feed/5New Alice: Madness Returns shots are properly bonkershttp://www.vg247.com/2011/04/08/new-alice-madness-returns-shots-are-properly-bonkers/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/08/new-alice-madness-returns-shots-are-properly-bonkers/#commentsFri, 08 Apr 2011 14:43:37 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=162258EA’s released five new screens of Alice: Madness Returns. The Spicy Horse was shown at the publisher’s European press event in London this week. The screens include a weird baby-looking thing that we can’t honestly describe, a teapot with an eye and a very creepy looking Cheshire Cat. We’ll have an interview and impressions for you on Monday.

Alice: Madness Returns releases in June for PS3, 360 and PC. Shots are below.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/08/new-alice-madness-returns-shots-are-properly-bonkers/feed/4ESRB rates Alice: Madness Returns, details combat and bad languagehttp://www.vg247.com/2011/04/04/esrb-rates-alice-madness-returns-details-combat-and-bad-language/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/04/esrb-rates-alice-madness-returns-details-combat-and-bad-language/#commentsMon, 04 Apr 2011 03:24:44 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=160574US games ratings organisation ESRB has given a description of the violent mayhem and bad words to be found in Alice: Madness Returns. Teapots and exposed brains are both mentioned.

Siliconera reports the game sees players using “pepper grinders, knives, and other weapons” on “trolls, puppets, living teapots, doll-like creatures” and others in melee combat.

“Battles are accompanied by cries of pain, slashing sounds, and large splashes of blood that stain Alice’s body and the ground.

“Some enemies can be decapitated, and certain attacks cause them to explode into pieces; in one sequence, young doll-like characters are depicted with bloody wounds that expose their brains.”

The dialogue is noted to contain references to prostitution, and “the words ‘f**k’ and ‘c*nt’ can be heard in dialogue.”

What does the ESRB have against cutlery and the smallest division of the dollar? Oh. Oh.

The BBFC also recently assessed Madness Returns for the UK, awarding it a certificate 15 for fantasy violence and gore, strong language and two incidents of very strong language. Now we know what they are, I guess.

The Australian Classification Board rated the game at MA15+, for “strong violence, dark themes and coarse language”.

Alice: Madness Returns is the follow up to 200′s American McGee’s Alice, developed by the designer’s China-based studio Spicy Horse in partnership with EA.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/04/esrb-rates-alice-madness-returns-details-combat-and-bad-language/feed/3Alice: Madness Returns rated for the UKhttp://www.vg247.com/2011/03/22/alice-madness-returns-rated-for-the-uk/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/22/alice-madness-returns-rated-for-the-uk/#commentsTue, 22 Mar 2011 18:38:39 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=157879The BBFC has given its final rating for EA’s upcoming sequel to American McGee’s Alice, saying it’ll have a 15 certificate when it releases in the UK.

The certificate means – obviously – that kids under the age of 15 won’t be allowed to purchase the game in the UK.

The items submitted to the BBFC had a running time of 62 minutes 37 seconds, indicating there’ll be plenty of cutscenes and story for you.

The rating also notes there’s a trailer for Shadows of the Damned included in the game, showing EA will be doing some cross promotion between its two twisted Summer titles.

Alice: Madness Returns is due for release this June. The full posting’s up on the BBFC website.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/22/alice-madness-returns-rated-for-the-uk/feed/1Spicy Horse to return to free-to-play developmenthttp://www.vg247.com/2011/03/10/spicy-horse-to-return-to-free-to-play-development/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/10/spicy-horse-to-return-to-free-to-play-development/#commentsThu, 10 Mar 2011 01:41:03 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=155041Alice: Madness Returns is the last traditional AAA outing for designer American McGee for the foreseeable future, as Spicy Horse announces its intention to target the free-to-play market.

“We don’t see that the future for us is in triple-A console games,” McGee told Joystiq.

“We actually are trying to make games that are online, free-to-play, 3D advanced casual games, so as we finish [Alice: Madness Returns] we’re going to transition the company back to where we were intending to be when we finished Grimm.”

McGee had nothing negative to say about his studio’s collaboration with EA on Alice, or about the development process.

“We restructured for two years, we built the game, we did a great job, we’re gonna ship it on time, on schedule, we never had a crunch and it’s been really awesome. … We never had to work on a weekend and, in fact, we were always running ahead of milestones, so we would even give extra days off when the sky was blue, or something like that. So, it was a really pleasant development experience.”

Nevertheless, the studio will return to its original focus.

“But now, it’s back to what our belief is in terms of where things are going, so it’s going to be all about free-to-play, 3D games for Asia.”

Alice: Madness Returns releases on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in June. It is the first major console release developed entirely in China.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/10/spicy-horse-to-return-to-free-to-play-development/feed/1Alice: Madness Returns – Insanity bakes great cakehttp://www.vg247.com/2011/03/08/alice-madness-returns-murder-and-insanity-make-wonderful-cake/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/08/alice-madness-returns-murder-and-insanity-make-wonderful-cake/#commentsTue, 08 Mar 2011 17:14:54 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=154557Spicy Horse and EA were showing off Alice: Madness Returns at GDC last week, giving us both a look at the third-person action puzzler and a chat with dev lead RJ Berg.

Alice: Madness Returns

Developed by American McGee’s Chinese studio, Spicy Horse.

Releasing on PC, PS3 and 360 on June 14

The first game, American McGee’s Alice, sold 1.5 million units on PC after releasing in 2000.

In Alice: Madness Returns, as in the real world, cake is a good thing. In the game, it turns you into a massive giant and allows you to crush your enemies as if they were ants invading your picnic. Luckily it doesn’t have the same affect in actual life.

Let’s take a look at where Alice’s cake came from in the first place.

American McGee’s Alice first hit PC in October 2000, and although the game received a positive reception from the gaming community – and garnered an 85 Metacritic rating – EA has taken a little over 10 years to be ready to head out with the IP again.

According to the game’s executive producer, RJ Berg, the long wait had nothing to do with there not being a market or consumer desire for Alice, it’s just that EA was in a “different place” during the last 11 years, and, since it owned the IP, a new release for Alice was solely the discretion of the publisher, not the developer.

In the meantime, American McGee and Berg contented themselves with work on the GameTap-exclusive Grimm, an episodic game series based on a nasty little troll and the Grimm Fairy Tale collection.

“American and I always thought we would do more work together,” Berg told us at GDC, “so we started [Spicy Horse] in Shanghai and created a project based on Grimm’s fairy tales in an episodic format. We thought we would mine that field.

“But before we finished that project, EA came and said ‘Hey, we’re getting the band back together. Let’s think about doing a new Alice.’ And we had thought about doing that anyway, but EA owns that property and American I were employees at EA at the time of the first Alice. So anything to do with Alice is owned by EA.”

Development of Alice started in December of 2008, and so far it looks fluid. The art is astounding, dripping with detail. Madness Returns honestly looks to be a labor of love.

Mental ward

The game starts out 11 years after the first title, with Alice having been released from a mental ward and currently under the care of a psychiatrist in an outpatient program.

However, the trauma she endured due to her parents’ deaths continues to thwart her recovery, so she slips back into Wonderland for escapism. Due to her present insanity though, the place is a mess, and she must both set things right and find the true cause of her parents untimely demise.

The first look at Alice’s gameplay was released
in the past week.

Upon entering Wonderland, you will find it is a very colorful, a beautifully rich world despite its run-down state – this mirrors the degradation of her mind. The demo we saw started off in an area leading to a courtyard in the hedge maze where Alice had to do double jumps across a crevasse and land on invisible, moving playing cards. Lucky for her, she can see these cards in a special visual mode.

Once across the crevasse, Alice entered a courtyard full of card soldiers and used her Teapot or Hobby Horse to destroy the enemies. There are various types of soldiers, and a large globular creature with porcelain masks attached to its body, so you will need to figure out which weapon works best against them.

Do you shoot them with your Pepper Grinder, or do you uses your Hobby Horse, which looks like a knight chess piece, to bash them? The Hobby Horse can change into a spiky mace, and the Pepper Grinder shoots like a machine gun. The Teapot also shoots an acidic substance which helps when you need to eat a hole in walls; or an entity blocking your path.

Rabbit bombs

There are also rabbit bombs which resemble wind-up tin toys. These stun enemies long enough for Alice to run up and bash them around a bit before the stun wears off. Alice’s handy parasol can be used to block attacks, and one mustn’t forget her butcher knife and dash attacks.

With all of this gadgetry at your disposal, you would be forgiven for thinking you are going to enjoy another 30-40 hours running about Wonderland and setting things right. However, according to Berg Alice’s adventure will be shorter this time around.

“One of the things we heard from fans of the first game was that the game a got a little long, and maybe even a little tedious,” said Berg. “But that was the style of games back then. A 30-hour product was a valuable proposition. That proposition has sifted somewhat, but you’ve got to provide some depth in places that we weren’t able to before and compress it. It’s got to feel more satisfying, have more movement through the story, make it just as complex as Alice is complex, and give people a sense that they are engaged. We’re hoping that it will last somewhere in the 10-12 hour range.”

Berg was unable to comment on whether DLC would be released for the game or not to lengthen it, and was unsure whether EA plans to release a demo or not.

“EA has plenty of marketing plans around the game, but they have not exposed the totality of the plan to us, and I am not sure that I can respond either way for them.

“We are very excited [to release] Alice. The studio is in Shanghai and I am the only one in San Francisco, so I get to go out there every three months or so and it’s great how this has come together.

“The junior people in the studio have really stepped up on this. We are always trying to be respectful to the property. Alice is such a wealthy, fertile property from the imagination of Lewis Carroll, and we feel a responsibility to respect him and respect people’s feelings about this incredibly engaging young woman. This adds not only to the satisfaction of doing it right, but there’s the anxiety of, ‘Will she be received the way we want her to be.’”

“We’re hoping that it will last somewhere in the 10-12 hour range.”

Once the enemies in the courtyard were defeated, Alice opened up a gazebo, inside finding her father’s spectacles. His disembodied voice, which she hears replaying in her head as a memory, tells her never to turn down desert or tea. A little bit after this, a large, scary card bursts through the wall of the hedge maze and into the vast courtyard she has been battling in.

Luckily for her after hopping across a mushroom or two, she finds a cake, eats it, grows massively tall – like skyscraper tall – and stomps the giant card soldier into mush.

Alice is different all over this time. The PC version will also see a digital release while the console versions will be a boxed product. The original Alice was released only PC, but it was initially designed to go on PS2.

“We thought it should go on a console,” said Berg. “But we were all worried that it was a mature game, and most people’s idea of Alice was a child’s product. We didn’t want to confuse the market, so we thought we’d release it on PC first and then maybe put it on the console, but obviously that didn’t happen, so it was released on PC only.

“It went on to sell 1.5 million copies.”

The game is scheduled for PC, PS3 and 360 on June 14.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/08/alice-madness-returns-murder-and-insanity-make-wonderful-cake/feed/1Alice: Madness Returns gets first official gameplay trailerhttp://www.vg247.com/2011/03/07/alice-madness-returns-gets-first-official-gameplay-trailer/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/07/alice-madness-returns-gets-first-official-gameplay-trailer/#commentsMon, 07 Mar 2011 18:43:34 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=154340EA’s released the first official gameplay trailer for Alice: Madness Returns following the lengthy off-screen video posted by IGN over the weekend. She’s still mad, still jumping, still hitting things with a horse’s head. Alice, as confirmed at GDC last week, releases in June for PC, 360 and PS3.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/07/alice-madness-returns-gets-first-official-gameplay-trailer/feed/7Alice: Madness Returns gets first gameplay footagehttp://www.vg247.com/2011/03/05/alice-madness-returns-gets-first-gameplay-footage/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/05/alice-madness-returns-gets-first-gameplay-footage/#commentsSat, 05 Mar 2011 08:45:47 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=153990IGN off-screened Spicy Horse’s Alice: Madness Returns at GDC this week, showing the game’s actual play for the first time. Alice is seeking to reveal the truth of his parents’ murder, a quest demonstrably involving running around, collecting stuff, stabbing enemies and hitting things with a horse’s head. Alice releases this June. There are two movies down below.